News From Around the Web
> When used with mammograms on women over the age of 65, computer-aided detection leads to more diagnostic interventions, including biopsy, and results in more diagnoses of situ breast tumors, according to a new study. "Because in situ tumors often neither grow nor progress, CAD may be leading to a lot of unnecessary breast surgery and radiation in older women who don't really have breast cancer," study author Joshua J. Fenton, M.D., of the University of California Davis, said, according to Reuters. Article
> The number of children receiving proton therapy has increased by 36 percent since 2010, according to a report sponsored by the Pediatric Proton Foundation and the National Association for Proton Therapy. According to DOTmed News, 722 children received proton therapy at one of 11 proton therapy centers in the U.S. in 2013. Article
> An imaging study out of the Stanford University School of Medicine has found differences in the brains of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome compared to those of healthy people. Using diffusion tensor imaging the researchers identified a consistent abnormality in a particular part of a nerve tract in the right hemisphere of the brains of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Announcement
Health IT News
> Seventy percent of breaches involving the California healthcare industry were due to unencrypted data on lost or stolen hardware or portable media, a problem that strong encryption would fix, according to the latest data breach report from the state's attorney general. Only 19 percent of such breaches occurred in other industries. Article
Health Finance News
> When not-for-profit hospitals switch to for-profit status, their finances may improve but the quality of care they deliver remains about the same, concludes a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Article
And Finally... Highway money grab. Article